Guardian Writer Dave Hill On Politics, People & Goings On

Architecture & Planning

June 05, 2008

"I certainly will be maintaining the role of an adviser on architecture or urbanism but you're just going to have to watch this space and see exactly who we come up with."

The website Building Design has taken this to mean that Rogers, Livingstone's choice, is on his way out. The mayor's office tells me that no decision has yet been made. But if there is to be a change it shouldn't necessarily be taken as signaling a lurch towards fogyism. Johnson is a gherkin admirer as well as a protector of St Pauls, a mod man as well as a conservative. Speaking to the Royal Academy on Monday he said he'd be "the Don King of the debate between tradition and revolution". Don King comparisons? Is it a celebrity hair thing? Whatever, the image makes the point.